It’s Orphan Sunday, and the internet is ablaze with happy adoption stories, mind-boggling orphan statistics, and pictures of children eligible for adoption. In many churches around the country today, there were sermons leaning heavily on James 1:27 and special presentations calling congregations to action. I have no doubt that some hearts will be changed and futures transformed… but I can’t help but wonder about the many people who will hear about the overwhelming need and walk away feeling, well, overwhelmed.
If that’s you… friend, I get it. Between the diapers, tantrums, and chores, I don’t feel like I have much time to think about what God is asking me to do to care for the world’s orphans. But I’ve spent years thinking about this subject, and I want to say a few things to you.
First, let’s talk about adoption. In some circles, orphan care and adoption are synonyms. I’m just going to put this out there… I don’t think this is healthy. There are so many good reasons you wouldn’t adopt and a quite a few bad ones). But if you have put the question on the table, seriously wrestled with it, and come back to the place that the answer is no, there is no guilt in that. After seeing some failed placements that happen when there’s all zeal and no preparation, I don’t think everyone is “called to adoption.” However, I do think we are all called to care. And I wonder, what would the world look like if we all wrestled with the question, “Why wouldn’t I adopt?” But if you’ve done that – and you have an honest answer that isn’t rooted in selfishness or fear – I think it’s OK to table the question, and I don’t think you need to walk around feeling guilty about it, even on Orphan Sunday when it may seem like “everyone else is doing it.“
So if adoption and orphan care isn’t synonymous, where does that leave us? With a responsibility, that’s where. The very fact that these children have no families caring for them means they belong to you and me. We don’t get to shirk that responsibility simply because we aren’t in a position to adopt. Maybe you aren’t going to be turning in your adoption application next week, but you can find the place you are called to serve orphans. I love this article by Kristin of Rage Against the Minivan because it highlights so many good and important ways we can do real orphan care, even on a local level. (I realize this blog focuses on special needs adoption from China, but there are orphans in your town and we can’t overlook them either.)
I encourage you to click over to read the whole thing, but here are a handful of good ideas:
— Provide respite care for a local foster parent. I have friends who have fostered, and it is hard, hard work with little payoff, as the children are often removed right when you start to see transformation begin to take place. Their love looks like Jesus to me, but they still need a break.
— Lend a hand to a family who has adopted. I could write a book about the many ways our community has blessed and encouraged us in the last 7 months. From the big (a $10,000 adoption donation out of the blue) to the little (a gallon of milk on the doorstep on a hard day), the grace to get through the day often comes from the hands and feet of a friend.
— Get involved with at-risk mamas locally. Rather than judging, what if we served families struggling to appropriately care for their kids? Could families be preserved and maintained?
— Advocate, advocate, advocate. Help raise awareness for local child-care entities and those doing on-the-ground work in places near and dear to your heart. This site often features the profiles of waiting children, and The Heart Gallery exists in most regions of our country, advocating for adoptable children in the foster system.
I realize most people reading this are probably passionate about adoption, and I’m so thankful for that.
There is a critical place for adoption in the world of orphan care. But I want to echo what my friend Rebecca said the other day in what I think is one of the most important posts on NHBO in a long time – if we are passionate about orphan care, we must also be passionate about orphan prevention! I realize for those of us adopting from China, there are governmental factors beyond anyone’s control, but poverty should never be a reason for a child being separated from his or her birth family. And in China, when a little one is abandoned at 4 years old with all of her medical records and it seems her family has reached the end of their resources, it is poverty – not choice or policy – that most likely made her an orphan. When we were living and working with New Day Foster Home in China, my husband and I started Scarlet Threads out of the primal need to at least feel like we were doing something to address the root issues of economic inequality that puts families in the torturous position of choosing between their child and getting them the life-saving medical care they need. We’re still working with a group of rural artisans in China to produce one-of-a-kind handicrafts, and though our orphan care/orphan prevention efforts are mostly through financial donations from the profits of our business, I’m thankful to see more and more organizations springing up in China that are providing ways we can directly help families on the brink of crisis. Rebecca recently put together a thorough list of organizations doing orphan prevention work on-the-ground in China, and I encourage you to check it out. (Kristin’s post has a list of organizations working in other countries.) I can’t help but wonder what it would look like if we adoptive families spent as much time and energy working to raise funds to keep children with their families-of-origin as we did raising funds to adopt those same children after they are abandoned.
Adoption, orphan care, orphan prevention… all of these are such important parts of what today is all about. But like I started out saying, it’s easy to hear the “147 million orphans worldwide” statistic that gets tossed around so much and feel completely numb to the meaning, overwhelmed by the sheer number of children that represents and unable to see a way to make a real difference. That’s when we need to remember that these children do not just belong to you and me. They are the Father’s, and He has not forgotten a single one of them. He knows them each by name, all 147 million of them. And though His plan for redemption and restoration looks different for each of them, we can take heart in the fact that He has not forgotten them.
My youngest was a rainbow for Halloween. At first I chose the costume simply because it was cheerful and sunny and made me smile. But when I put it on her last week, I saw so much more. I saw a promise.
A promise of a bright future for both of us. These early days are hard – if you haven’t heard me say that yet, let me say it again. It is so very hard, and so often I don’t feel equipped or prepared for the task at hand. We are in the trenches of knitting our hearts together, and I’ve had more meltdowns in the last few months than I’ve probably had in my whole life. (And we won’t get started on the number of meltdowns those under 4 in our house have had!) But I trust that God has something good planned for each of us in our little family… He didn’t bring us this far only to leave us half-mended and half-connected. He promises fullness of life, and I have every reason to expect His good work to continue.
And 8 months ago, she was one of a 147 million orphans. And I think about the room where she lived those first 16 months of her life. That room with 30+ cribs and not a single one empty. I think of those babies, many of whom may never leave the orphanage walls, and I have to believe that God has promised them something, too. 
There are no God-forsaken places, and His light and love and mercy and redemption stretch like a rainbow into those dark places and reminds us that we do not need to carry this burden heavily. His yoke is easy and His burden is light, and He is the father to the fatherless. We are blessed with an opportunity to be His hands and feet in many different ways, but we do not ever need to feel overwhelmed.
Love. Love. Love!